Apple

Apples

Skin as red as scarlet blood,
Flesh like bone bleached in the sun,
Seeds like pearls of bitter shadow,
Taste so sweet it burns like sorrow,
Juice like tears that drip from your eye,
Each mouthful a crunch, each bite a sigh.
A poison tainted with dark delight,
That kindles a fell flame deep inside.

“Just one bite.” he murmured, his voice heavy with intoxicating desire.

His teeth punctured the soft skin of the apple with a crunching noise, sinking through the moist, enticing flesh. The taste flowed from the tainted fruit, pooling on his tongue, a sugary substance so addictively sweet he could feel hunger for the next bite gnaw at him already. He ripped the chunk of apple from the core, feeling his teeth sink through the fruit as he chewed it. More of the juice seeped from the flesh, flowing down his throat and dripping from his chin, sating a hunger he never knew he had.

The apple burned his throat like fire, and the juice on his hands had started to smoke, the skin blistering under the caustic substance. He winced, hissing faintly, and sunk his teeth into the apple again, tearing at it with savage hunger. Coppery blood dripped from his lips, and the cloying taste of power filled his senses, like boiling sugar that melted through the flesh on his tongue and seeped through his body, rotting him to the core.

Everything burned, and the smell of blood and sugar filled the heavy air. The prince fell to his knees, a guttural howl flowing from his lips. The apple rolled across the marble floor, leaving a moist trail of crimson blood.

The prince laughed, his elation an obscene stab of joy in a sea of pain. Leathery wings tore through the skin of his back, claws ripped from his fingertips. His eyes darkened to twin embers of glittering hunger, ruby scales erupting over soft pale skin. Spines burst from his back, as he curled in a fetal position.

His armor shattered, rings of metal failing to contain the rippling flesh that writhed under his glittering scales. His howl became a hiss, the hiss of a serpent, his claws and spikes tearing gashes in the marble floor. His tail whipped, smashing through stone and wood, splinters of furniture clattering to the floor. Everywhere was the smell of apples, sweet and enticing.

He could feel the fire well up in his chest, burning like a thousand trapped demons, gnawing at his very soul. He curled his serpentine throat, the pressure pounding in his chest, and with a roar let it free, releasing wave upon wave of infernal flames that gushed from his jaws, marring the world with charred black scars and filling the air with smoke.

The prince sat up with a cry, his chest glistening with sweat, pulling the covers closer to him as if to shield him from his nightmare. His heart pounded with an echo of the fire that had burned deep within it. He gasped for air, his lungs tingling as if they remembered the feeling of the fire spreading in them, turning his very being to ash.

A soft voice murmured incoherently, as the princess’s eyes fluttered open. In the dying firelight, her pale skin looked like silk. Her dark hair fell across her shoulder in a mass of ebony curls as she sat up, silently, stroking his shoulder and murmuring to him.

“James…? What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing, Snow…” he muttered, his eyes still glittering with an echo of his terror. “Just… just a nightmare.”

She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her lips to his, calming his troubled heartbeat. He kissed her back, softly, lifting a hand to brush her cheek with his fingertips, the dying fire dappling the couple with warm and wavering light.

The apple on the bedside gleamed, as if lit from within, and a faintly sweet smell permeated the air. Somewhere in the soft rustle of sheets, there was the hiss of a serpent. Somewhere under silken skin, there were the scales of a dragon. Somewhere in a loving heart there was that spark, that temptation, that terrible fire. The cloying sweetness, the addictive hunger for infernal power.

One bite was all it would take.

“Just one bite.” he thought, as the flicker of passion in his eyes became a hunger so white-hot it gnawed him like dragonfire.